Aaron Hall Killer Seeks Bail

One of the two men charged in the brutal hate crime killing of Aaron Hall in Crothersville last month has been held in a Jackson County jail without bond after he was charged with murder and voluntary manslaughter, but that could change. Judge Bill Vance has ordered a bail hearing for 18-year-old Coleman King next Monday, May 21, 2007 at 11:30 a.m. in Jackson Circuit Court at the request of King's attorney, Joseph Leone Payne of Austin.

King is also seeking a very speedy trial according to the report in the Seymour Tribune. Vance originally scheduled his trial for October 23, but he agreed to move it to June 21 at 8:30 a.m. His final pre-trial conference is scheduled for May 29 at 3:00 p.m. Strangely, authorities have yet to release the results of an autopsy report after Hall's body was sent to a Louisville medical examiner last month.

According to a probable cause affidavit filed in the case, King began beating 35-year-old Aaron Hall after Hall grabbed King in the crotch area and asked for oral sex. King and his friend, Garrett Gray allegedly beat Hall over a several hour period. At one point, King allegedly struck Hall with his boot about 75 times. The two, with the assistance of a third man, James Hendricks, dragged Hall out of Gray's home and loaded him into the back of a pickup truck. Hall was driven to a secluded farm road where he was further beaten and his naked body dumped in a ditch. According to King, he and Gray later returned to the scene and Gray fired two shots from a shotgun. King did not know whether Gray shot Hall, and the autopsy results have not yet been revealed by authorities. The following day, Hendricks and a fourth man, John Hodge, discovered Hall's dead body in a nearby field. Gray and King later retrieved Hall's body by rolling it up in a tarp and hiding it in a detached garage at Gray's house where it was discovered by police 10 days later.

Gray's father, Terry Gray, is a deputy coroner in Jackson County and has publicly stated that his son did not intentionally kill Hall.

The Jerry Falwell Story: Mistaken For An Assassin

I didn't plan to write about the Rev. Jerry Falwell's passing until I received an e-mail from an old friend sharing his memorable encounter with Falwell while he was a student at Southern Illinois University back in the early 1980s. I've known Gordon Wayman since I was in high school when I was active in the Teen-Age Republicans. By way of introduction, Gordon is one of the few people I met growing up who was more of a political junkie than I was. He was a huge Richard Nixon fan post-Watergate, which made him a bit of a rarity in those days. Nixon was so impressed by Gordon's loyalty he invited him to visit him at his home in San Clemente at a time when he had remained in seclusion from the rest of the outside world after resigning the presidency. Gordon's visit with Nixon made headlines across the country at the time.

Back to Gordon's Falwell story, it is absolutely hilarious as it involves Gordon being mistaken for an assassin. Gordon is a very non-threatening, slightly-built person, which makes the story all the more funny. The following is an excerpt from Gordon's book, "While You Do Your Business: A Bathroom Reader That Makes You Laugh In All The Right Places," which you can purchase on Amazon.com, relating Gordon's unforgettable encounter with Falwell.

Well, do I seem like the kind of person who would be mistaken for an assassin? When I was in college, I almost got killed in the “line of fire.”

It all started at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois. I was active in politics. I was even the president of the SIU College Republicans. Jerry Falwell, the TV minister from the Old Time Gospel Hour, was at that time president of a political organization called, “The Moral Majority.” He was very well known and very controversial. He was scheduled to be on campus and speak at a dinner. A local business group sponsored the event.

One of the sponsors was a friend of mine and gave me a ticket. I had plans to attend the 7 p.m. event. However, that afternoon I was in the student center study lounge on the second floor reading. Jerry Falwell had arrived on campus early and was on the same floor doing various interviews with the press. Outside the student center were hundreds of liberal, left wing groups demonstrating against Falwell and his organization. In fact, I learned later that there were even threats against his life.

Around 5 p.m. I left the study lounge to go to my apartment to change clothes for the event that evening. While I was leaving, I walked down the hall, and to my surprise, Jerry Falwell was coming right at me. He was surrounded by a group of bodyguards followed by several others. I thought that this was my opportunity to promote our SIU College Republican Club. We had these buttons, like the old time political campaign buttons, that said “SIU College Republicans.”

So, as Mr. Falwell was approaching, I reached into my jacket pocket to pull out a button to give him. Yes, you guessed it. His bodyguard thought that I was pulling out a gun from my pocket. One of the guards, about 6 feet tall and over 200 pounds, knocked me down, pulled out his gun, and Jerry Falwell was rushed to the next room. I was pushed and I slid on the floor a good six feet. A gun was in my face. My face turned three shades of red. I said, “All I wanted to do was give him this button!”

Well, the story isn’t over yet. That evening shortly after I arrived to the dinner, I heard my name over the speaker system. “Would Gordon Wayman please report to the information desk in the lobby?” I thought, “What in God’s name have I done now. It was only a button!” Apparently, the friend that gave me the ticket to the dinner was one of the people walking behind Jerry when the incident in the student center had occurred. He had told Jerry who I was. I was brought back stage. Mr. Falwell wanted to meet me and apologize for the actions of his security guards.

Mr. Falwell was real nice about the whole thing. He even gave me a nice gift, a “Jesus First” gold lapel pen, which I have to this day. We chatted for a couple of minutes, and I gave him my SIU College Republican button, which I am sure he does not have to this day.

After the dinner and speech, Mr. Falwell worked the crowd and shook hands with people by table. I was sitting with a group of friends, however, I had not had time to tell them about the incident. When Falwell came to our table, he patted me on the back and said, “Gordon, my Republican friend!” My friends looked at me with big eyes and said, “Do you know Jerry Falwell?” I said, “Oh, we go way back!”

Has Nuvo Lost Its Way?

I picked up this week's edition of Nuvo anxious to read the alternative newspaper's take on last Tuesday's election debacle in Marion County. Because the paper has been so vocal about past transgressions of the most recent Republican occupant of the Marion County Clerk's office and the state's Voter ID law, I assumed the actual disenfranchisement of over 3,000 voters would be particularly newsworthy to it. I figured wrong. The election story rated only a small mention in the "Thumbsup Thumbsdown" column, and then only to tells us things were just as bad under Beth White's predecessor. The paper writes:

This year's primary elections were a total failure. And while it's easy to blame Democratic Marion County Clerk Beth White, who now admits her office did not adequately prepare for the primary, Republican Doris Ann Sadler, who previously held the office, had just as many problems. Maybe it's time we blame the elected officials who control the budgets and pass laws concerning elections--Republicans and Democrats.

Sadler had just as many problems? Let's blame Republicans and Democrats? Please do us a favor, Nuvo, and never publish another story on the state's Voter ID law. Nobody has been disenfranchised because of Voter ID. Plenty of people were disenfranchised last Tuesday because Beth White "did not adequately prepare for the primary" as you put it. I'm surprised your paper doesn't care about that fact.

Ballard Will Get No Help From MSM

In case the GOP nominee for Indianapolis mayor Greg Ballard hasn't figured it out yet, he won't be getting any help from our city's mainstream media in unseating the worst mayor the city has had in decades. Matt Tully's column in today's Star is typical of what he can expect from the slackers who dominate local political coverage.

Tully begins today by telling us Mayor Peterson has as much of a chance of losing his job this year as Peyton Manning's chance of losing his job. Tully bases this conclusion on the mayor's supposed ability to "connect." "Regardless of whether you vote for the guy, you have to admit Peterson knows how to connect," Tully writes. What? Are you kidding? This man doesn't relate to average folks in this city in the least bit. He can't stand average joes. This man was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and he could give a damn less about anyone who isn't a millionaire like him. Give me break, Tully. Get your head out of your ass.

So what about Greg Ballard? Oh, yeah, he's just the "forgotten man" Tully tells us. "Lost amid the wreckage of last week's primary debacle was news that Indianapolis Republicans have nominated a candidate for mayor," Tully writes. "Ballard kicked off his campaign in the typical style of underfunded, little-known challengers -- by criticizing the incumbent," Tully added.

I just don't get it when it comes to the way local politicos like Tully cover our political races. The last thing I want to see as an astute political observer is for anyone to get a free ride. A horse race is much more fun to cover than a landslide. Instead of giving challengers like Ballard a chance against entrenched incumbents like Peterson, guys like Tully disparage their candidacies to help ensure their early predictions of defeat become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Hear this, Greg Ballard. If you hold any chance of winning this year's election, you need to figure out fast you need to work around the MSM. You have to reach out to bloggers and use the Internet to build grassroots support for your campaign. I've heard absolutely nothing from anyone connected with your campaign. As a Republican and a voter who will support you over Peterson, that's not very reassuring. I would have hoped that Tom John and the folks who work for him over at the GOP headquarters would have explained this to you, but he has apparently not based upon what I've seen to date. I hope the Marion County GOP truly wants you to win this race. Four years ago, they were doing everything possible to make sure Greg Jordan lost.

Carmel Junior High School Turns Paris Hilton

Last night I caught an old episode of South Park where Paris Hilton comes to town to open her new line of stores, "Stupid Spoiled Whore" at the local mall. All the little girls in South Park want to be just like Paris Hilton, except little Wendy. Even the parents want their little girls to be stupid whores just like Paris Hilton because they want them to be popular. During one scene in the episode during a party thrown by one of South Park's young girls, boys take turns going into a closet to have a sex act performed on them by one of the girls. Apparently the Paris Hilton bug has been caught by the girls at Clay Middle School in Carmel. Four 7th-grade girls from the school were captured on a video camera at a weekend party having sex. The video images were being shared with students around the school via e-mail, causing school officials to step in and send a letter to parents. WTHR reports:

The cell phone is often a powerful and helpful communication tool with its video, picture and text capabilities, but it's a cell phone that has a handful of students at Clay Middle school in trouble, and police investigating what they allegedly did.

"We just received information about an alleged misuse of a cell phone in our school of video images," said Clay Middle School Principal Gary Middleston. The school confirms that a phone image brought to school by a student was confiscated, and now an investigation is underway.

School administrators are sending vague letters to parents regarding a setting outside of school where a small number of students created inappropriate images on cell phones. Parents and students say that the images of four female seventh grade students engaged in sex acts were recorded at a weekend party with a cell phone, and the video was e-mailed to other students.

The school won't relay what exactly was on the phone confiscated from a student at school last week. They also won't say how many students are involved, or if they've been disciplined.

Carmel Police didn't want to go on camera, but a spokesman did say the school called them. Detectives are looking into the events and plan to forward their findings to the prosecutor.

"We're going to deal with the one student who brought the information in. If the police determine other boys or girls were involved, we'll look at that individually, and take it from there," said Huddleston.

The school and police clearly are not saying what was found, but according to students and parents, there's no getting past the alleged video images of seventh grade students engaged in sex acts and apparently e-mailed to an unknown number of people.

I don't know how much further we will continue to decline as a society before people say enough is enough. It seems that Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky ushered in a whole new era in America where trash rules. Every day we're bombarded in the media with the slutty antics of Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan. The trashier they become, the more media coverage that is bestowed upon them. Club owners shell out $50,000-$100,000 a pop to have one of these sluts show up at their club sans panties to get drunk and expose themselves. And sleazy Internet website operators enter into multi-million dollar agreements with these sluts to peddle their latest, "accidentally-leaked" sex tapes.

Once upon a time, these pseudo-celebrities wouldn't see the light of day in mainstream media coverage. They would have been frowned upon and excluded from the gossip columns of major newspapers and television network programming. Now we can't escape their filthy smut. Until people start demanding better role models from major media organizations, our young people will continue to emulate the worst our pop culture has to offer. God help us all.

$50 Million Not Good Enough For Billionaire White So Bart Throws Him Another $16 Million

Mayor Bart Peterson (D) earlier pledged nearly $50 million in public subsidies to Dean White's White Lodging Services to build a 1000-room hotel next to the Indiana Convention Center in time for the 2011 Super Bowl. Peterson seems confident the City will win its bid for a Super Bowl after pledging $25 million in private contributions and an unprecedented income and sales tax exemption for the super wealthy professional football team owners. Now, Mayor Peterson plans to borrow at least $66 million to subsidize the billionaire Dean White's brand new, $250 million J.W. Marriott Hotel.

As it always is, the working men and women are asked to bend over and take another one for one of Mayor Peterson's super wealthy friends. Never mind that your property taxes will climb more than 25% this year on average and your local income tax will be doubled on top of all the other tax increases you've endured over the past 8 years so Mayor Peterson could hand out more than $1 billion in public subsidies to the state's wealthiest citizens. This man must be stopped. We must take back our city government this year. We can't afford another 4 years of Bart Peterson.

Bloomberg Could Alter 2008 Presidential Landscape

The WashingtonTimes is reporting today that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is planning to run as an independent in the 2008 presidential election and has set aside $1 billion of his personal fortune to spend on his campaign. "Bloomberg is H. Ross Perot on steroids," said former Federal Election Commission Chairman Michael Toner. "He could turn the political landscape of this election upside down, spend as much money as he wanted and proceed directly to the general election. He would have resources to hire an army of petition-gatherers in those states where thousands of petitions are required to qualify a third-party presidential candidate to be on the ballot."

Accoding to the Washington Times, both Democratic and Republican leaders are taking the Bloomberg threat seriously. One Bloomberg adviser reports that consultants now working for Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) are ready to jump ship and help Bloomberg if he runs. Observers note that Bloomberg would have more money to spend than either of the two major party candidates if he commits the $1 billion. Social conservatives in the party have primarily been worried about Mayor Rudy Guiliani winning the GOP nomination. Bloomberg's candidacy might actually hurt Guiliani's bid if moderates join forces behind Bloomberg. Bloomberg could then run in the center alone against a more conservative GOP candidate like Mitt Romney and a more liberal candidate like Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY).

Now Gary Wants A Land-Based Casino

Well, that didn't take long. Just days after Gov. Mitch Daniels signed into law legislation allowing the state's two horse race tracks in Anderson and Shelbyville to purchase franchises to operate what amounts to land-based casinos at their tracks, a push is on to allow a new, land-based casino in Gary. "Rep. Vernon Smith, D-Gary, said lawmakers should go back to the drawing board in the next session and allow land-based gambling in the city," writes Steve Walsh of the Gary Post-Tribune.

Gary originally had two, separately-owned riverboat licenses until Donald Trump sold his license to Don Barden, the other license holder, two years ago. Gary officials are upset because the consolidation of the two licenses has led to a loss of jobs in the city. They want the Indiana Gaming Commission to rebid the second license. It seems to me that's something the local officials should have thought about when they stood by and allowed the Commission to approve Barden's purchase of the Trump license.

Barden's Majestic Star casino is none too happy about the position now taken by local officials. A comment by the casino's general manager David Schugar isn't likely to sit well with some. "We think that what is good for Don Barden is good for the city," Schugar told Walsh. "We wish the city would get behind us," Schugar added.

Barden wants to build one, large barge casino to replace the existing riverboats. The Commission is expected to vote in June on a renewal of both licenses for a 3-year period for Barden.

Daniels' Trade Mission To Europe

Governor Mitch Daniels is leading a 32-member trade delegation to Germany and the United Kingdom this week as part of an "effort to bring jobs and investment to Indiana and strengthen relationships with companies that employ Hoosiers in their Indiana operations." While I believe these trade missions can be beneficial to our state, they too often become nothing more than junkets for political insiders and cronies. One look at the makeup of this delegation confirms it is more of a junket than a serious trade mission.

Ten of the delegation members are members of Daniels' administration, including the governor. Of course Nate Feltman, the head of the IEDC, is on the trade trip. That is to be expected. He also drags along four other members of the IEDC staff, including Chad Sweeney, Stephen Akard, Edita Ubartaite and Michael Kruger. Daniels is bringing along two members of his personal staff, including his press spokesman Jane Jankowski and aide Ben Ledo. Two members of the governor's security detail are also on the trip, as well as Tom Dusing from Carefree Travel. His commissioner of Agriculture, Andy Miller, joined the trip, and he brought his assistant, Beth Bechdol.

It wouldn't be a true junket unless members of the legislature were along for the ride. Four lawmakers take this honor, including Sen. Sue Landske (R), Sen. James Lewis (D), Rep. Matt Whetstone (R) and Rep. Dennis Oxley (D). Notice the even split between Rs and Ds. This helps insulate the trip from partisan criticism.

Two members of the business and community delegates on the trip have close ties to the IEDC's Nate Feltman. His uncle, Ed Simcox, is along for the trip as the lobbyist in chief for the Indiana Electric Association. Melissa Reese is a partner at Ice Miller, the same law firm where Feltman was a partner before joining the administration. According to her bio at the firm's website, she concentrates her practice in employee benefits. I'm not sure how her work relates to this trip.

Simcox also managed to get a couple of his fellow utility industry friends on the trip as well, including NIPSCO's Don Babcock and Duke Energy's Marie Christine Pence. Kyle Hupfer, the former DNR commissioner for Daniels and now an executive with ProLiance Energy, also made the trip.

Matrix Global Partners' Terry Anker is on the trip. His company was the beneficiary of a $1.2 million from the state's 21st Century Research and Technology Fund. The Reimbursement Group's Michael Duff, a GOP contributor, is on the trip. Ray Moistner and David Bramlage, representing Indiana's harwood lumber industry, are both on the trip.

Frank Hoffman, a real estate attorney for Krieg DeVault with strong GOP ties, is on the trip. Kenneth Yerkes is the head of Barnes & Thornburg's labor and employment practice and that earned him a seat on the trip. And Christine Keck of Old National Bank joined the group.

Several local economic development folks are on the trip, including Wayne County's Jim Dinkle, Washington County's Bill Nolting, Lawrence County's Eugene McCracken and the Northeast Indiana Regional Marketing Partnership's John Sampson. And the final person on the list might keep an otherwise hostile blogger to the Daniels' administration from commenting on this trade mission. Gordon Hendry, husband of Taking Down Words' Jen Wagner, made the trip on behalf of the Indy Partnership. Also, Sven Schumaker of Lutheran Child and Family Services is accompanying the group as a volunteer for IEDC.

“We select trade mission trips based on where we think the chance of return is highest,” said Daniels. “We’ll talk about the welcoming climate in Indiana and what we’re doing to make our state an even more attractive place to do business." One has to wonder, though, whether that same criteria carries through to the persons selected to participate in these trips based on some of the participants on this trade mission.